Thomas Mann Quotes

For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.

Sì: vi sono alcuni che necessariamente smarriscono la strada, poiché per loro non esiste una strada giusta.

How can I free myself from sexuality? Eat nothing but rice?

And for its part, what was life? Was it perhaps only an infectious disease of matter — just as the so-called spontaneous generation of matter was perhaps only an illness, a cancerous stimulation of the immaterial?

He completely lacked any ardent interest that might have occupied his mind. His interior life was impoverished, had undergone a deterioration so severe that it was like the almost constant burden of some vague grief. And bound up with it all was an implacable sense of personal duty and the grim determination to present himself at his best, to conceal his frailties by any means possible, and to keep up appearances. It had all contributed to making his existence what it was: artificial, self-conscious, and forced — until every word, every gesture, the slightest deed in the presence of others had become a taxing and grueling part in a play.

Umreti, to, naravno, znači izgubiti vreme i otići iz njega, ali to ujedno znači steći večnost i trajnu sadašnjost, a to znači pravi život. Jer suština života je sadašnjost i njegova tajna predočava se samo na mitski način, u vremenskim formama prošlosti i budućnosti.

Ni lepota nikad nije savršena, te baš zbog toga i podstiče sujetu.

Kome je mnogo dato, tome može mnogo i da uzme. Ako me Gospod učini bogatim, on može i da me pretvori u zemni prah i da me učini siromahom poput nekog pogorelca; jer njegova ćud je silna i mi nismo u stanju da spoznamo puteve njegove pravednosti.

Gledao sam gore, to zacelo stoji! Posmatrao sam kako svetlost zrači, kako veličanstveno promiče, i moje su se ognjenim sunčevim strelama pozleđene oči krepile na blagom sjaju noćne zvezde.

Ja može svako da kaže, ali ko to kaže, to je bitno.

SETI SE MENE KAD BUDEŠ DOSPEO U SVOJE CARSTVO.

Čovek mora da vodi računa čime će se ukrasiti, mora da pripazi da se ne odluči za ono što mu ne pristaje.

Videti ne znači imati. Ali videti znači hteti imati.

Ili je život opsena, ili je lepota opsena. Nećeš oboje naći sjedinjeno u stvarnosti.

Thoughts come c.early while one walks.

These artists pay little attention to an encircling present that bears no direct relation to the world of work in which they live, and they therefore see in it nothing more than an indifferent framework for life, either more or less favorable to production.

O, čarobna organsko lepoto, koja se ne sastojiš ni iz uljane boje ni iz kamena, već iz materije žive i raspadljive, pune grozničave tajne života i truljenja! Pogledaj divnu simetriju ljudskog sklopa, ramena i bedra i rascvetane bradavice s jedne i s druge strane grudi, i rebra poređana po parovima, i pupak usred mekote trbuha, i tamni pol između butina! Pogledaj samo kako se lopatice miču pod svilastom kožom na leđima i pogledaj kičmu koja se spušta ka dvostrukoj i svežoj bujnosti stražnjice, i velike grane sudova i živaca koje prelaze sa stabla u grane preko pazuha, i pogledaaj kako sklop ruku odgovara sklopu nogu. O da milih predela u udubljenju zgloba na laktu i kolenu, sa njihovim obiljem organskih tananosti obloženih mesom! Kakva neizmerna radost, milovati ta divna mesta ljudskoga tela! Radost posle koje čovek ne žali da umre! Oh, daj da osetim miris kože pod tvojom čašicom, pod kojom večno načinjena zglobna čaura luči svoje mazivo! Pusti me da sneno dodirnem ustima arteriju femoralis koja kuca na vrhu butine i koja se dole deli u dve golenične arterije! Pusti me da osetim isparavanje tvojih pora i da opipam tvoje malje, tu ljudsku sliku vode i belančevine, određenu za anatomiju groba, i pusti me da umrem sa usnama položenim na tvoje.

"But admiration and sadness, admiration and worry, is not that almost a definition of love?"
"There are people with whom it is not easy to live, but whom it is impossible to leave."

For he used to say...that knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and of good cheer.

…But sometimes a person begins with opinions and judgments and valid criticisms, but then things creep in that have nothing to do with forming opinions, and then it’s all over with strict logic, and what you end up with is an absurd world republic and beautiful style.

I ako je lično shvatimo, umetnost je povišen život. Ona usrećuje dublje, ona troši brže. U lice svoga sluge ona reže tragove umišljenih i duhovnih doživljaja, i vremenom, čak i kada mu je spoljni život manastirski miran, stvara kod njega toliku razneženost, prefinjenost, zamor i radoznalost živaca da bi to jedva mogao stvoriti život pun razuzdanih strasti uživanja.

This old, folkish layer survives in us all, and to speak as I really think, I do not consider religion the most adequate means of keeping it under lock and key. For that, literature alone avails, humanistic science, the ideal of the free and beautiful human being.

Nothing gladdens a writer more than a thought that can become pure feeling and a feeling that can become pure thought.